One thing to remember when watching Leo's videos.

[Forestluv]

3 minutes ago, nahtanoj said:

The Buddha himself used to teach different things accordingly to the student consciousness. 

That takes a lot of skill and mastery

[FoxFoxFox]

How many layers can we pull over our eyes? Sure, everybody is enlightened, because the Self is all that there is. That is the highest truth: that there has been no ignorance in the first place. But if I ask you, in the relative world, "are you enlightened?", you either say yes, or no. If the eyes are not open enough to see your enlightenment for your own self, then you should abstain from judging other people's enlightenment. This is something that is severely lacking in this forum. Good advice is lost in a sea of drivel. People butt in their noses to tell us that "all experience is relative". That is childish idiocy. That, relativity is implied in the phenomenal world, is given. 

When I tell you that Consciousness is the first cause - this is not relative knowledge.

When I tell you that the mind does not exists - this is not relative knowledge.

When I tell you that there are no "stages to enlightenment" that come about the more drugs you imbibe - this is not relative knowledge.

When I tell you that the world ceases to exist with a silent mind - this is not relative knowledge.

None of this is relative knowledge, it only seems so because it has been filtered through the English language. YOU have lost the ability to discern fact from fiction. YOU could verify things by your own, but YOU don't want to. What YOU want to do, is to tell people how ignorant they are.

When I say "YOU", i'm talking directly to the Self. Who is at this very moment, the only one who is speaking, reading, and listening. 

Neophytes always tell you that nothing can be said about enlightenment. This is basic enlightenment talk. If you look at all the sages, all they do is talk about enlightenment.

But you hide behind a shield of passivity, adopting the mask of sagacity, pointing out the Ego in others, only to satisfy yourself - hiding the ignorance that bubbles in your belly. That eerie, uneasiness in your stomach that is with you all the time, gnawing in the back of your head, constantly causing doubt whether you are in fact enlightened or not. That is the knot that connects the body and the Self. That's what you want to cut.

Instead of sitting down to open a window into the Self, you adopt all these funny notions and judge people by them. Judging your own enlightenment against others. What ends up happening is that you lose discretion. You lose the ability to discern truth from drivel. That's why when once in a blue moon some one comes and tells you, hey, your drugs are not really helping you, or hey, these videos are not really helping, you automatically assume that they are dismissing your relative experience. This is not the case. Your relative experience is no different from God, and so it cannot be dismissed as "relative" after all.

[Joseph Maynor]

On 3/13/2019 at 6:25 PM, nahtanoj said:

The Buddha himself used to teach different things accordingly to the student consciousness. 

I think the different systems of Enlightenment appeal at different stages of the Path.  For example Advaita Vedanta appealed to me much more when I was still somewhat trapped in the Mind, whereas Zen appeals to me much more now that I've made a lot of progress transcending the Mind.

Edited March 15, 2019 by Joseph Maynor